


Happy Birthday

by Leticheecopae



Series: Ask the Hunters and the Hunted [1]
Category: Ask-the-hunters-and-the-hunted, Homestuck
Genre: Ask the hunters and the hunted, Athath, Demonstuck, Humanstuck, Other, Violence, gun use, mental trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5774215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leticheecopae/pseuds/Leticheecopae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sollux and Mituna have shared everything throughout his life. Their birthday, their hair color, and friends. He just wants one night that is more for him than his sibling, a memorable one, where he can learn to hunt demons along side his parents just like Mituna has. When he gets his wish, Sollux doesn’t realize just how memorable this birthday will end up being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Requested and written for the wonderful [Sollux](http://frecklesandstitches.tumblr.com/) of [Ask the Hunters and the Hunted](http://demonstuck.co.vu/), which is an awesome demonstuck cosplay blog over on tumblr. This story takes place before the timelines shown on the ATHATH tumblr.
> 
> Shilo and Olivia belong to their creators over on Athath.

Sollux wonders if the blonde is completely covered this time. He’s only had the black hair for a few months, and he’s starting to regret ever dying it. For one, his friends’ reactions hadn’t been the best. Karkat said he looks like something called an ‘emo’; Gamzee keeps checking to see if he’s missed a spot, making small comments about missing the blonde color; and today Meulin had made him want to find a pair of scissors and sheer it off.

“Look at mew!” she had said with a little laugh when Sollux and his brother, Mituna, had come into view. “You’re bee colors! The bee brothers!” She had meant it kindly, Sollux knows she did, but the black had been something to separate him from Mituna, not add another level of duality. They share the same birthday, the same hair color, the same friends. He had just wanted a little something of his own, and now he can’t help but connect it to his brother.

The second reason he’s starting to regret it is that he keeps having to re-dye his hair. If he doesn’t, he looks like a paintbrush dipped in black paint.

The first time he hadn’t known what he was doing, and had left splotches of yellow throughout his scalp whilst dying more flesh than hair. His ears had been black for a week, along with the back of his neck and his hands. Despite being quite bright for nine years old, Sollux hadn’t thought about it dying skin. He had just followed the steps, sans gloves because they were way too big for his hands, and went to work. When he had finally walked out of the bathroom at midnight, he looked like he had dunked his head and hands in tar.

Sollux checks through his scalp again, looking for any spots of gold, and finds none. Good, he won’t have to do anything with it right now. Turning from the mirror, he goes to his bed, and flops down on it. He pushes his face into the sheets and debates on using those swear words Gamzee uses, the ones that his parents don’t like. Instead, he just sighs heavily as he reaches up and scratches at the top of his scalp.

“Sollux,” he hears from the hall just before his door opens. Sollux lifts his head to find his father, Shiloh, standing in the doorway with a large smile on his face. “Guess what I got your mother to agree to.”

Sollux pushes himself up and moves into a sitting position before asking, “Um…to let us make our own pizzas instead of doing frozen?”

His father goes to say something, then pauses.

“No,” he drawls. “Though remind me to try that sometime.” He walks fully into the room. “But, what I got her to agree to is gonna make ya happier than pizza,” he says before kneeling in front of his son. “She’s agreed to a family huntin’ trip for your birthday!”

All thoughts of his hair goes out the window.

“Really!?” Sollux’s hands curls tight into the blankets he sits on. He’s going to get to hunt with his parents; a real hunt, not just stories.

“Yep. She says as long as you want to go, then we’ll do it.” Shiloh grins at Sollux. “So what do you say? Wanna go huntin’ with your old man for your birthday?”

“Yes!” The word rings through the house as Sollux jumps up, Shiloh’s arms coming up to pull him into a tight hug as they laugh.

“Guessing he said yes,” comes from the hallway. Sollux pulls back to beam at his brother, who stands grinning in the doorway.

“Of course I did, dingbat,” he chides with a smile. “I’d be brain dead not to.”

“You’re brain dead anyways,” Mituna quips back, though his grin stays in place.

“Boys,” their father says between the two of them. It’s not a fight, and they know they aren’t in trouble from Shiloh’s tonality. Instead, the word makes them both smile wider.

“Get packin’,” Shiloh tells them as he walks past Mituna into the hall, hand rubbing into his golden hair as he goes. “‘Cuz tomrra’, we hunt.”

——

“Olivia, honey, darlin, please. You cannot cook a pizza on a camp fire,” Shiloh says as Mituna and Sollux go about trying to figure out the family sized tent.

“Why not?” she asks as the sound of rustling plastic fills the air. “All I have to do is prop this bit up, and put this on top.”

Sollux turns when he hears a clanging, and finds that his mother is holding the grill portion and top of the BBQ. He can’t remember them ever using it besides on the 4th of July.

“Is that why your pack was so heavy?” Shiloh asks.

Sollux’s mother just smirks, saunters past him, and goes to the fire she has built up in the shallow pit Mituna dug. Already the flames are eating through the wood, creating a warm blaze at Sollux’s back as he tries to shove flexible metal poles into the tight cloth sleeves of the tent.

“Come on, don’t you have your piece in yet?” Mituna calls as he hammers in one of his stakes.

“I’m getting there,” Sollux grunts as he keeps trying. The pole is getting caught somewhere near the top.

“Mituna, wh’d I say about staking before all the bits are in?” Shiloh calls from behind them. Sollux smirks as he watches his brother’s face heat up a bit. “I’m waitin’,” Shiloh adds when Mituna stays quiet.

“Not to,” he grumbles.

“Right, now dig those up so you and your brother can finish that. We’re goin’ to bed early. Wan’ta be up before dawn and see what we can find creepin’.”

“Thank god I brought my NyQuil,” Olivia murmurs behind them.

“Do you have a cold, mom?” Sollux asks. He hasn’t heard her sneeze.

“It’s for sleeping, honey,” she tells him.

“Why don’t you just use those herbs Aunt Selena gave you?” Mituna calls as Sollux pushes the pole through the now flattened tent. It comes out the other side, finally, and he and Mituna start to lift it back up.

“Because, my dandelion,” she replies to Mituna. “Those little plants help me get to sleep, but with how you boys snore, they don’t keep me sleeping.”

“I don’t snore,” Shiloh grumbles.

“Is that why you always find me asleep in the guest room?” Oliva replies. There is an odd clanging, and the heat behind Sollux dims.

Sollux turns to find his mother next to the fire, pizza over the flames, and the BBQ top over it. “Does this mean I get to tell Gamzee we had barbeque for my birthday?” Sollux asks as Mituna goes back to hammering the stakes into the ground.

Olivia looks up and smiles at him. “Sure does, honey bee. Even made sure it was a BBQ chicken pizza. And,” she pauses to reach into her bag. “I brought extra sauce.” She hands him a jar that boasts that it is the best BBQ infused marinara in America.

“Plus, I got this one for you and your brother.” Sollux looks up to find a little bottle of honey barbeque sauce presented to him.

“Thanks mom,” he says as he hands her back the jar.

“Course honey,” she tells him as she reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. “Gotta do something special for your big one-o.”

“But it’s not our birthday yet,” Sollux says.

Olivia gives him a smile. “Nope, it’s not, but we figured we’d go out for food after your hunt, so tonight is birthday dinner night.”

“When did we decide that?” Shiloh asks as he passes by, a sleeping bag under each arm. Olivia gives him an exasperated look before he disappears into the now finished tent.

“Does that mean we get smores?” Mituna asks as he comes to stand next to his brother, his head just coming up around Sollux’s shoulder. Sollux glances at his yellow hair, and unconsciously touches his own.

“With honey graham crackers,” Olivia tells him as she sets the jar of marinara near the flames.

“Which might be all we’re eating tonight,” Shiloh calls. “I don’ think that’s s’possed to be smokin’ that much, hun.”

All heads turn to the firepit. Sure enough, smoke is bubbling around the sides of the BBQ lid.

“Oh shit.” Olivia lifts up the top, and smoke billows up in a small mushroom cloud. Waving it away with a rather oversized spatula, she gets the air clear enough to lift up the bottom of the pizza, and finds it black. Sollux feels his shoulders droop a bit.

“Don’t worry boys,” she says as she stands with the blackened disk balanced on the end of the spatula, her finger pushed into the just barely cooked center. “I brought extras, just in case.”

“You know, we could have just bought chicken,” Shiloh says from the tent door as he throws packs inside.

“You wan’na pizza pie to the face?” Olivia asks.

Shiloh raises his hands in defense. “I’m good,” he tells her as he goes for another armload of items from the car. “I’ll wait for the next one.”

“Then why don’t you and Sollux go get me some more logs,” Olivia calls as she puts the blackened pizza on a piece of plastic, takes out a foam bowl, and begins to scrap the unharmed toppings off.

 

“I’m going to need to get this next one up higher if we want it to be edible.”

Sollux’s heart jumps and he grins. Maybe they’ll do some scouting! They could even run into something! He’ll finally be able to watch his dad really work, and not just go off the stories Mituna has been telling him. Like how his dad is able to reload his shotgun with just a single movement.

“I’ll go too,” Mituna says behind him. The little bubble pops quickly, and Sollux feels a burn of anger at his brother. Mituna didn’t have to share dad on his tenth birthday, why should Sollux?

“No, dandelion, why don’t you stay here with me,” his mom says quickly. “Let Sollux and your dad have some alone time on his tenth birthday. Remember how much you enjoyed that?”

Mituna kicks at a bit of dirt from the fire pit. “Yeah,” he grumbles.

“Then why don’t you go get the rest of the stuff out of the car for me, honey bee.”

Mituna nods and walks towards the car as Shiloh comes out of the tent, shotgun already in hand. In the other is something wrapped in red and blue polka dot wrapping paper.

“Guess that means he’s opening his present early,” Shiloh says. Sollux can’t take his eyes away from the parcel. It’s a gun, he knows it’s a gun. He can tell by the shape and length, and the way his father holds it with the barrel down is the biggest giveaway.

“Does it have the holy water shells like mine?” Mituna asks before Sollux can get a single word out. He shoots his brother a glare before he takes the gun in hand.

“What did I tell ya about subtlety?” Shiloh asks Mituna.

Sollux doesn’t care to look at his brother as he goes about tearing into the present.

“Though yes, that’s what he’s got in his pouch,” Shiloh says.

“Pouch!?” Sollux just about shouts as he looks up from the barrel.

“Now, what did you say about subtlety, honey?” Olivia asks sweetly from behind the boys.

Shiloh mumbles something Sollux doesn’t hear. He’s too intent on getting every single piece of paper off of the shining, honey toned 24 gauge shotgun. It’s a bit smaller than his father’s, but not by much, and it is heavy. He doesn’t care, he lifts it to his shoulder and keeps the barrel aimed down at the ground. The butt of the gun pushes into his shoulder, feeling just a little big for the space over his clavicle and shoulder joint.

“You’ll grow inta it,” Shiloh says. His hand ruffles Sollux’s black hair, and Sollux smiles. “Now come on, I wanna eat at some point tonight.”

——

The forest is in twilight beneath the trees, even if the sun isn’t actually down. The high bows of evergreens and thick leaves of aspens send them into a green tinged darkness that creeps slowly up their ankles.

“Hey, Dad,” Sollux asks quietly as he stoops down to grab a good looking log. The bark is a bit slick under his fingers, and he drops it immediately. Wet wood is no good to them right now, though they are having a heck of a time finding anything dry. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last rain, with the thick foliage, most things stay damp.

“What is it?” Shiloh asks, his voice just as quiet.

“Would you tell me the story of the stag? You know, since it was-”

“My first hunt?” Shiloh cuts in with a chuckle.

Sollux nods, “Yeah.” He’s heard this story a hundred times, no, a thousand, but he can never remember it the way his father tells it. It’s never nearly as good.

“Alright,” Shiloh says with a nod. “Well first off, I was twice your age. I didn’t know about all the things hiding in the dark until I was moving on into adulthood. Even back then I wasn’t sure what was going on, I just knew that there was something bad out in the woods, and I was gonna get it.”

Shiloh steps over a large log, and Sollux climbs over it easily after him. With his height, he can keep up without a problem, and he does his best to walk right in his father’s foot prints.

“It was almost dark, kinda like this. I was out in the backcountry, looking for hikers, other hunters; The thing went after anyone who was in the woods after night. Police didn’t know what it was, because the knife marks never made any sense. They were more like gouges, like what you’d see from deer antlers, though there were no deer that size anywhere on earth, and a Moose’s antlers aren’t as fine, and-.”

“And an elk’s go the other direction,” Sollux cuts in, knowing the animals by heart.

“Right,” Shiloh says with a smile. “An elk’s go backwards. Too hard to ram into someone, at least the back ones. The people they found though had multiple sizes, multiple holes.” He kicks at a log, bends, and picks it up. He whacks it against a tree, kind of like how Sollux has see Tavros’s dad do with his bat, and then sticks it under his arm.

“So I went out in the woods, just your old man and his gun.” He lifts his shotgun up a fraction to highlight it. “Not this one, mind you, because that bas-I mean, thing took it down with him.”

“But that one has the same stock,” Sollux says as he searches for his own log.

“Yep, only thing I could salvage,” Shiloh says. “Anyways. So there I am, down in the dark, looking for anything that might tell me what’s going on. So far I’m not finding a thing, just some deer tracks, raccoon here or there, and then I hear this rustling.”

Shiloh pauses, and Sollux comes up next to him. “It was just like this,” he says quietly as a breeze blows through. “Only isolated, in a single spot in the forest. I couldn’t see it at first, I thought it was the backside of a hill, but then,” he steps back. “It stood up twice as big as I am now with horns that went out further than my arms.” He sticks his hands out, body spread wide with a log in one hand and gun in the other. Shiloh, being over six feet tall with an impressive arm span, provides Sollux enough information to calculate the size of the massive beast in his head. In his mind, Sollux can see it, a great hulking thing. A more majestic counterpart to the first thing he had ever seen. A moose does not hold the same grace as a deer, and while the first ghost Sollux had seen had been horrifying, it was nothing compared to the horror his father saw.

“It stared at me with pits of hellfire that could have scoured me out if I had let it. There was madness in those eyes, an insanity that had turned this thing bad.” Shiloh’s looks past Sollux, like he can see it again in the woods.

“I stood there, scared out my damn mind,” Shiloh says as he lowers his arms. “Couldn’t think ta’ shoot, couldn’ think at all. I just let it come forwards, floatin over the ground without leaving a single trace. It smelled like the rotting things you find under logs and along river beds. Its horns drank in light, making the space around it into nothing but shadow. Those eyes though, I could always see those eyes. They burned like they could never go out, like they could survive on hate and hate alone.”

“But you put them out,” Sollux chimes in.

“Yeah, I did,” Shiloh says with a solemn nod. “It was about as far as you are from me before I realized it meant to kill me. Had just barely started to lower its head when I got the shot off. Bam!” Shiloh aims his gun at a tree and makes a motion like shooting one handed. “It took it in the side of the head, and it let out a sound like wind spinning through a dead man’s eye holes. High and deafening. Sent me reeling back.” He fakes a stumble. “But I stayed up, and shot again. This time I got it’s throat, but it didn’t do a damn thing. I just had regular shells back then, and all I did was piss it off.”

“But you had your knife,” Sollux says as he grips his gun tightly in both hands.

“That’s right, I had my knife. The silver tipped one your grandaddy gave me when I was a boy. Nothing but an ornamental piece of crap up until that point. But I had it with me, my goodluck charm,” he pats his chest. “And I still keep it with me.”

Sollux reaches out a hand, not even having to say anything for his father to take the small knife out of the small sheath over his heart and hand it over. It’s barely four inches long, with a warped blade.

“After those shots the damn thing charged, got me with one of its horns, and pinned me down,” Shiloh tells him, hand going to touch his side. Sollux has seen the scar of the horn that took one of his father’s kidneys. It still has rings of red on it, like a tree. “Dropped my gun, started screaming. Could hear the thing laughing at me as it pushed its horn in so deep I thought it was going to come out the otherside. Miracle still that it didn’t.”

Sollux nods and hands back the knife. “I couldn’t get to my hunting knife, it was on my back , and being pinned made it impossible. So I went for the only thing I could, I went for this.” He holds the knife as if it is a relic of power, something to demand respect by all. “I took it, and shoved it into one of those hell holes it had for eyes, and twisted. It let out a sound that left my ears ringing for months,” he tells Sollux. “It was black and red when I pulled it out, the silver starting to melt, and the thing tossed me like a rag doll. I flew at least ten feet before hitting another tree. Barely had time to move when it charged me again. I got my arm up, got the knife at eye level, and let the beast drive the knife into its other eye.” He puts the knife back in its sheath.

“Lived off of pure luck and angel whispers that night,” he says solemnly. “If not for the hunting party that found me clutching in my guts, you wouldn’t be turning ten.” Shiloh says the last bit with a little smile, and Sollux looks at him with a bubble of reverence in his heart that makes it almost hard to breathe.

“Now, how about we head on back?” he asks as he looks up into the tree. “I don’t think we’re gonna find much more out here.” He kicks at another somewhat soggy log and Sollux nods.

“Good. Now, why don’t you show me what you remember about tracking. Take us back.” Shiloh grins down at Sollux at the words, and Sollux feels his ears go red as his stomach drops. He looks around the forest. He hasn’t been paying attention to their path, just to his father. “Come on, I know you know what to look for,” Shiloh says. “You do just fine back at home.”

Sollux nods, grips his gun tighter, and looks. Pushing up his glasses, he looks for his or his father’s footprints. He looks for the shape, their striped, and in the damp soil and crushed grass, he finds them quickly. “That way,” he says as he points down their trail. It’s becoming clearer now. A ways off he can see the place where his father struck the tree.

“Good eye,” Shiloh says. “Lead us back. Let’s see if your mom figured out what the hell she’s doing.”

“But I thought she needed more wood,” Sollux says as they walk.

“No worries,” Shiloh says with a wink. “There was more in the truck.”

Sollux can’t help but grin.

—–

Dinner is like any dinner in the Captor household. Lots of yelling, calls of ‘pass the sauce’, and shirt stains.

“Whelp, we’re going clothing shopping later,” Olivia says as Mituna drops a slew of toppings onto his shirt. He picks them off, shoving the last bites into his mouth.

“Or, you could, you know, do some laundry,” Shiloh says as he puts down his empty paper plate.

“That,” she says pointing at Mituna. “Is not coming out of his shirt.”

“What about bleach?” Shiloh asks as Olivia leans back to grab the box of graham crackers and other s’more items.

“Dad, this is yellow,” Mituna whines.

“So?”

“And you call me clueless about housework,” Olivia snorts as she passes Sollux the chocolate and marshmallows.

“Hey, just because-”

“How did you two meet,” Mituna pipes up.

Sollux looks at him, and grins. Best way to get their parents to stop sniping at one another is to ask that question, because each time it is something different, and each time Shiloh and Olivia have to forget about their fight to figure out their past.

“Well we-”

“Your father was being attacked by chickens,” Olivia cuts in suddenly. Both boys look at her, and then their father, who sighs and hangs his head.

“They weren’t attacking me, I just had chicken feed.”

“They were attacking you, you had holes in your pants,” Olivia says. “Pretty sure that’s an attack.” She sticks a marshmallow on her stick and holds it over the fire. “So your father was being attacked by angry chickens, and-”

“Would you at least let them know it was a petting zoo,” Shiloh cuts in. “I had too much feed, the things swarmed me, so okay, fine, it was an attack. But I couldn’t get the little feather beast-things off because I didn’t want to kick a chicken in front of a bunch of children.”

“Plus you would have kicked the babies,” Olivia points out.

“That too,” he agrees. “But your mother came up with a great idea to get them out of the way.”

He looks at Olivia, expecting her to continue, but instead she just smirks at him, waiting. Shiloh takes a moment to consider his own marshmallow before continuing. “She found one of the pen brooms, rattiest thing I had ever seen, and just started to sweep away the chickens. Not hard, but enough to get ‘em moving. Gave me enough room to run, and then the chickens just swarmed the spot where I had been.”

“There was still feed under your father’s feet.”

“Yep, and thanks to your Mom’s quick thinking, I still have all my toes. But,” he adds as he leans down to pull up his pant leg. “I still have some scars.” Sure enough, there are little scars that pockmark his ankles.

“And your father took me out to a fried chicken dinner that night,” Olivia adds with a grin.

Both boys sit quietly for a moment before Mituna speaks. “I think I liked the Gator Land one better.”

“Nu-uh, Dad knocking out the power at the science expo was better,” Sollux says.

“Nothing happened at the science expo though!” Mituna snaps at him. “At least at Gator Land mom almost got her head bit off wrestling an alligator.”

“But at the expo they were chased by police and-”

“Your marshmallows on fire,” Mituna cuts in.

Sollux looks at his marshmallow, and sure enough, it is a flaming ball of sugar.

“Gah!” he lets out before blowing on it. The fire goes out, and there are small chuckles around the flames. His mother hands him graham crackers and chocolate, and Sollux goes about making a burnt s'more.

“Dad?” Sollux asks between licking some of the melted marshmallow off his fingers. “When are you guys going to tell us the real story?”

His father swallows a bite of his own s’more. “Who says we haven’t?” he asks his son, a glint in his eye.

Sollux looks at Mituna with slightly wide eyes. Have they told them it already? He looks back at his dad. “When will we know which one is the real story?”

Shiloh smiles and looks at Olivia. She gives him a chocolate smeared smirk in response and nods.

“We’ll tell you on your eighteenth birthdays. Meaning Mituna gets to try and keep a secret for two years,” he says with a chuckle. “Sound good?“

“Aw, that’s not fair,” Sollux grumbles as he takes a bite of his s’more.

“Better to wait a while then never hear it at all,” Olivia says.

Sollux glares at his smug looking brother before sighing,“Okay, sounds good.”

They sit quietly eating for a moment. “Hey dad,” Sollux starts, interrupting the cricket chirps and night birds. “Didn’t you get those scars when you got stuck in a bramble bush?”

Olivia starts laughing, and Shiloh is the next one with a burnt marshmallow.

——

Sollux wakes up without prompting. There is nothing but the sound of the wind outside, and the chirping of a few late night crickets. Besides that, the world is still. Sitting up, he looks around. What woke him up?

“Dad,” he says gently. “Hey, Dad?”

Shiloh stirs gently, his shadow a hulking shape on the other side of the tent.

“What’s it?” he slurs out, voice full of sleep.

“I-I don’t know,” Sollux replies.

Shiloh is up before Sollux can get out another word. Silently, Shiloh grabs his gun, and unzips the tent with a quick flash of fingers. It only makes a single spike of sound before there is nothing. Outside, the dying embers of the fire gently crackle and pop, producing a small ring of red light around the camp.

“What’z-” Olivia starts. A quick hush from Shiloh, and she’s sitting upright. Sollux watches as he moves out of the tent in nothing but boxer shorts and an undershirt, similar to what he and his brother are wearing. Really, what they all are, though their mother has on shorts over her underwear.

Sollux watches his father’s shadow fade into darkness around the sides of the tent, go behind them, and reappear on the other side.

“Anything?” Olivia asks as he comes back in.

Shiloh shakes his head. “Nothin’,” he replies as he sets his gun down next to his wife. “Just a coyote snoopin’ around. He’s got his tracks all over the back of the tent.” He zips the tent back up, and sits himself down. “Good ears though, son.” He ruffles Sollux’s hair as he goes to stretch out. “And, if I’m not mistaken,” he clears his throat before starting to sing a bit off key. “Happy Birthday to you.”

“Happy birthday to you,” Olivia chimes in.

“Happy birthday, dear Sollux and Mituna,” they continue together. “Happy Birthday to you.”

Mituna makes a sleepy noise next to Sollux that sounds like an attempt at a chuckle. Sollux just smiles as his mother reaches over Shiloh to touch his face, and his father reaches past him to ruffle Mituna’s hair.

“Happy birthday boys,” he tells them as they all lay in the dark.

“Love you both,” Olivia adds before giving a yawn. “Now back to bed. Only have a couple more hours before it’s up and at’em.”

“I thought it was up and adam?” Shiloh says as Olivia lays back down.

“Nope. You’re just tired,” Olivia yawns.

Sollux watches his father roll over, lift himself up just a bit, and hears them kiss in the dark. “Love you,” is whispered gently followed by another kissing sound. Sollux pulls a face and rolls over, his face towards Mituna’s. In the dark, he can’t really see his brother, just his outline against the tent.

“Happy birthday, dingbat,” he says quietly as his parents move around him to get comfortable.

“I know you are, but what am I?” Mituna asks sleepily.

“Takes one to know one,” Sollux says and pokes somewhere in the vicinity of Mituna’s face. His hand gets smacked away.

“Hey dad, do you hear a buzzing noise?” Mituna calls gently.

“Leave your brother alone, Sollux,” Shiloh says with a yawn. “You two need your sleep. Don’t want to be hunting tired.”

Sollux stops bothering Mituna, but in the dark Mituna reaches out and grabs his hand. He gives Sollux a gentle squeeze. Sollux gives it back. Mituna does it harder, Sollux responds, and in a few seconds they are both laying with aching hands as they wait for the other to let go first.

To Sollux’s surprise, Mituna let’s go first.

“Happy birthday,” he whispers, and gives one last squeeze.

“Happy birthday,” Sollux adds before he pulls his hand back. He moves to lay on his back, and stares up at the dark top of the tent.

Despite the underlying buzz of excitement in his chest, Sollux’s eyes grow heavy, and fall. In the dark, he feels his gun near his feet. Even unloaded, it makes him feel powerful, and he falls into sweet dreams.

—-

The next sound that wakes him doesn’t stop when he opens his eyes. It is soft, like the rustling of fabric, and for a moment he thinks that maybe something is brushing against the tent. Through heavy eyelids, he looks towards the front of the tent, and freezes. In the last embers of light, there is something standing outside the tent, large and dark, and from its heads are horns. For a moment, Sollux thinks it is the dear, that it has come for his father, but that isn’t right. Deer horns have multiple points, these are just two horns that curve out. Maybe it’s like his moose.

He gives a little yawn. “What are you?” he asks to the side of the tent.

“Well I was sleeping, but I-” his father starts grumpily before his words cut off. Sollux watches as the shape in front of the tent moves. “Shit!” Sollux is suddenly shoved away as there is a ripping sound. He doesn’t see what happens, just feels something move a fraction of an inch from his arm before his rolls into Mituna.

“The guns,” he hears his father yell as he and Mituna struggle in a pile of limbs.

There are more tearing sounds, and Sollux feels something slice against his arm. Mituna lets out a cry as something cuts him as well.

“Get the boys!” their mother shouts before a gunshot goes off and makes Sollux’s ears ring. Outside there are cries of pain and anger.

“Ya lil’ bitch!” he hears before three sharp spikes come through the side of the tent. “Teach ya’ to disrespect me.”

Olivia lets out a cry as one of the prongs slice into her shoulder. It does little to stop her from reloading her gun. Sollux barely gets a look at the blood dripping down her arm when he is scooped up by his father. Sollux manages to grab his gun as he is lifted up, head spinning as he hears Mituna let out a grunt.

It takes barely two seconds for Shiloh to exit the tent with the boys. He bursts from beneath shredded plastic, an arm tight around Sollux’s stomach as he keeps a firm grip on Mituna’s shoulder.

Outside the tent, there is nothing but chaos. Sollux’s eyes dart around, trying to take in everything he is seeing. He catches snippets of glowing eyes, horns, and the flashing of metal in the dull embers of the fire. When he is suddenly swung, he hears a grunt, and his father stumbles. A shot goes off behind them, and Sollux registers, somehow, that it’s his mom.

“Run,” Shiloh roars. It makes no sense, because how can he run? He’s being held? That is until a second later when he is airborne. The darkness of the ground rushes up to meet him, and he feels the wood of his gun dig hard into his side on impact.

“Mituna!” comes through the interspersed gunshot blasts, a second having joined the chorus. “Get your brother out of here!” Sollux can barely hear the words as his ears ring. He needs to get up, he needs to help his parents. His hands move over the safety, slip it out of place, and he turns. He shoots at the first thing he sees, feels the trigger push fluidly under his fingers, and feels his eyes go wide.

Demons don’t have fluffy blonde hair.

The barrel clicks harmlessly just before Mituna knocks the gun away and lowers his shoulder. He doesn’t stop moving. His shoulder connects with Sollux’s stomach before he rights himself, momentum carrying him forwards towards the treeline. Sollux finds himself staring back at the tent, his body slung over his brother’s shoulder.

“Don’ let ‘em escape you idiots,” the one with the tall horns cries. Her voice cuts through the gun fire. “Catch those lil’ fuckers.”

“Not my fucking kids, you bi-” The word is cut off by a gunshot blast. Sollux watches through blurred vision as the silhouette of his mother, outlined in the barest of ember light, lets off a blast. It takes out a demon that has turned towards them, rushes for them.

It leaves her back open.

Shiloh is facing the wrong way to notice.

The three pronged weapon comes out the front of her chest easily, and Sollux can’t find the air to scream.

Shiloh has no problem. The sound he makes as his wife falls at his side takes the place of her death cry. Sollux watches Shiloh turn, reload his gun in one long, fluid motion, and lift it a second too late. Sollux feels bile on his tongue as the demon’s weapon slashes through the air. His father’s head follows.

The scream that rips from his vocal cords feels like it is tearing into his flesh. He’s dreaming. He’s having a nightmare. In a few moments, he’s going to wake up to his mother holding him tight and his father’s hands in his hair. This isn’t happening, it’s not happening, it’s no-

“Shut up!” Mituna hisses at him. His body jolts as Mituna shifts him and turns. “Don’t-?” Mituna’s voice falls as he looks back. They hit the edge of the clearing when he does, and Sollux feels the jolt of Mituna’s body when his foot hooks onto the root. For a moment, Sollux is weightless as he raises up into the air. Then, gravity works, and he is pulled back to the earth. The earth punches upwards into his back and into his skull. It makes the world into more of a dreamscape, causing it all to go fuzzy. The sky starts to flash, becoming the white noise and static of an old TV.

“Shit,” Mituna gasps next to him. Sollux can’t reply. There is no air to reply. His brain is too scrambled. He’s still waiting for his mother to shake him awake. Her voice will come out of the clouds, lead him out of dreamland and back into reality.

Strong hands grab him. Strong hands, but small ones.

“Come on,” Mituna gasps as Sollux lays prone, turns his head, and stares out at the horde in the center of the field. They aren’t moving. Instead, the tall one is laughing. He can hear her as she pulls back her arm. She is a dark spot in the night. Nothing should be that dark.

“We need to go, you dumb ass, move!” Mituna is at his side, tugging, pulling. He’s not watching them. Sollux is. He can’t stop watching the demon pull the three pronged weapon back, a trident he realizes. He watches the weapon go up; watches it fly.

Sollux knows that the trident is meant for him. It’s his death strike. As it makes its descent, Mituna shifts in front of him, tries to pick him up bridal style. The trident comes down.

Conscious of it or not, Mituna does what any old sibling would do. He saves his little brothers life with his own.

Sollux sees Mituna’s life leave his eyes the second the prongs enter his back and explode from his chest. He feels it leave Mituna as blood coats his upper body and splatters over his face. Mituna’s shorter body collapses onto him, falling sideways, and his forehead falls against Sollux’s. It is the last harsh jolt Sollux needs to give up on consciousness.

He is dreaming after all.

————–

Sollux wakes up to a warm caress. It ruffles his hair gently, traces his cheekbones, and he tries to push his face into his father’s hand, warm from polishing his shotgun. The pressure stays gentle, light, and it makes Sollux’s eyes flutter while he tries to shift under his comforter. It isn’t covering him enough. It’s too bunched. It feels heavy on his chest and upper thighs, and it isn’t covering his sock covered feet at all.

His hands grab at it, try to pull it, and find flesh where cotton should be.

Sollux’s eyes fly open, and he finds cloud streaked stars. He takes in shallow breathes, feels a dull pain in his stomach, and sees the slightest of yellow fuzz on the edge of his vision. He takes in deep breathes, and tries to ignore it. He can taste ash on his tongue.

“Mituna?” he asks gently as his hands push at the body on top of him. “Mituna, they’re gone, get up.” He goes to grip at the back of his brother’s shirt. “Bee brain, get…” His voice trails off as his fingers sink into a hole that is deeper than thin cotton. Sollux tears away from his brother, pushes Mituna off, and scurries upwards. He can feel the blood on his body; how it has soaked into his clothing and has crusted in areas.

There is pain in his stomach, and with tentative fingers, he finds a cut. It isn’t deep, but he knows what it’s from. He pushes his hand to it, and feels similar aches in his chest and shoulder. Sollux remembers watching the trident fall.

He glances at Mituna’s back. The trident is gone now, and so it the tall horned demon. It’s just them now.

“Dad?” the whisper comes as Sollux looks around. The tent is gone and his parents are nowhere to be seen. In their stead, a fire is burning. When the wind changes, he can smell chard meat and the sickening smell of burnt bbq sauce. His stomach wretches, and he leans to the side, away from Mituna, and tastes his birthday dinner a second time as he empties his stomach onto the ground.

The fire crackles as he looks around the forest. It isn’t the only source of light. Out in the distance, towards home, he can see lights. Lights, which means people. Other hunters. Light means help.

“Help!” The word rips through his throat before he leans over and grabs Mituna’s arm. “Shlomi, Khoshekh, help!” He pulls at Mituna with a harsh jerk, and they move a few inches. He pulls again, and Mituna goes a little further.

“Come on,” he pants. “We’ve got to get back. W-we’re going to get you…you’re not…” he lets out a sob as he tugs Mituna further into the tree line. They have to keep going. Mituna could still be alive. The prongs could have missed, there might not be too much blood loss.

“Dingbat, come on, wake up,” Sollux pleads. “Please, please.” His hands hold tight as he pulls him deeper into the woods. The scent of smoke hangs heavy in the air, and he knows that it isn’t just from the fire in the clearing. There are more fires, many more, and fear seeds itself deep.

Sollux hacks at the virus of fear that tries to slip through his soul. Mituna needs him. His friends can take care of themselves. His friends still have parents.

The sob that comes out is slick with tears, and he tries to blame the ash in the air. Tries, and fails as he pulls his brother. He can’t lift him, he knows that. He is the twig to Mituna’s stone. He can’t lift him, he’d break. So instead, he just pulls.

“Gamzee!” he tries. “Kanaya, Karkat, anyone!” He keeps pulling. They can’t hear him, he knows it, but he’s going to try. “Anyone, please!”

“You do realize you’re starting to sound like a broken record, don’t you?”

The woman’s voice is not one he knows. It sends him stumbling in the smoke. Mituna’s hand slips, and Sollux falls back into a tree. His eyes look wildly, the word fuzzy without his glasses to clear it up. They fall on a shape that is just a shade darker than the trees.

“Please, help,” he says. “My brother he’s-”

“Dead?” The voice asks. “Well yes, I can tell that already. I don’t understand why you’re still dragging him about.”

Sollux shakes his head, voice shaking as he tries to explain, “No, he’s just really hurt. He just needs-”

“No, my dear,” she says gently as she comes forwards. “He’s not hurt, and I think we both know that.”

Her voice is so matter of fact and sincere that Sollux finds himself unable to hold the lie together in his head. Mituna is dead. His parents are dead. With the fire in the distance, he knows that so many others must be dead. It’s enough to make any man snap. A child shatters.

The ground races up to his knees, and he lets out a sob before he screams. It takes his vocal cords and strips them. He does it again, tastes blood, and doesn’t know if he really cares. Maybe if he screams loud enough he’ll be able to get rid of the pain. If he screams loud enough, maybe he can bring them back.

“Shhh, shhh, child,” the strange woman says. She kneels before him, pulls back her robes, and Sollux finds himself looking into violet eyes set in a very pale face. “He’s gone.”

“N-n-n-” He can’t even force the denial from his mouth. Sollux gives a sharp shake of his head. “Please,” he begs as he looks down at his brother. If it weren’t for the bloody circles on his back he could be sleeping. Sollux reaches for him, and grips Mituna’s hand. It’s the same temperature as the forest.

“Help, please, he, I-” His voice cracks and he can taste nothing but salt as tears and snot drip to the ground. “Help him. Help, he can’t. I won’t. We…” He looks up at her. “It’s our birthday.”

The woman looks at him and nods. “I see,” she says. “Then what would you want his present to be?”

 

“To wake up.” Sollux’s voice cracks again.

The woman taps at her lips, dark in the sparse fire light that seems to be growing in all directions. Somewhere distant, Sollux thinks he hears his name.

“That kind of gift can come with a very high price, you know.” She says it matter-o-factly, as if it is the most common knowledge.

Sollux nods and sobs, “I’ll pay it.” He turns his grip on Mituna’s hand. Waits for the squeeze back. 

“No matter the price?” she asks. Her eyebrow raises.

Sollux looks at Mituna. He’s making a deal. Something in him knows that. A deep little spark in the synapses of his brain that tells him not to, that this is stupid. He’s alive, he should run, and never look back. There are voices in the woods, he should run to them. But that means leaving Mituna. That means leaving the last of his family.

They had all paid to keep him alive on his birthday.

Sollux looks up at her, and despite his missing glasses, she seems surrealy clear in the sparsest of firelight.

“My brother died for me,” he tells her. “I-I’ll match that price.”

“Equivalent exchange then,” she says with a smile and reaches for him. “Your price is set.”

“Sollux!” he hears resonate through the trees as the hand reaches for him. His skin feels like it is trying to shrink from the touch as he stays still. His eyes are the only thing to move away. They look through the trees and see two shapes come towards him. A mop of messy hair stands out in the scorched light, and a soft figure follows.

“Run,” he croaks as the fingers gently caress his cheek. Pain fuels the word. “RUN!” The scream echoes into the woods, ricocheting as Sollux’s atoms implode. They tear into themselves, shredding on levels of sentience that not even Sollux’s soul understands. He feels the world disappearing before him, feels himself slipping somewhere in between. He watches the two figures pause for only a moment, and realizes who they are. Gamzee and Kanaya, coming to save him. He heaves a sob from a half formed lung and watches as Kanaya pulls Gamzee into retreat; sees the woman’s pale face as she turns his head towards her.

“Happy birthday,” she says softly as his corneas become dust and his blood evaporates. The tearing keeps going, through the flesh, muscle, bone, blood, and down into the literal fibers of his soul. It pulls him apart, pixelates him, and he feels some shred of himself stay as the rest flickers into somewhere tepid and stagnant. There is nothing but him, a mental binary of static between worlds. Mituna is a one and he is the zero.

The last thing he feels is a sharp intake of breathe and knows it’s not his. Whatever is left of him is now shared with his brother; a line of code that no longer belongs to his soul.

‘Happy Birthday, dingbat,’ scrawls through his mind. Before the terminal of his brother’s brain can respond, Sollux’s soul shuts down.


End file.
